The Wayward Voidwalker
by Cthulhu's Priest
Summary: I am Voidwalker. I am Warlock. I am these in truest capacity for such things. Guardian am I no longer. In the dark of space I run. Running away; running towards. I am unsure. There is comfort in the void. Of the nonexistence in the between of things. I sail forward on the garbled, half-corrupt data of an extrasolar colony long lost. What awaits in this far and away world forgotten?


The stars, they dazzle and contract in distraction. As though the Motes of Light I had once been so familiarly attuned in what seemed so distant a past. So alien a self.

But the stars hold little of my attention in their astrological phantasm, they are but coordinates of the natural world. Such titanic curios existed merely to be decrypted and charted by the sanctimoniously blank orrery upon the ship that strode me across the void.

My luminous eyes focused on the nothings betwixt the pinpricks of light. The nothings and the never-weres. E'er so obstinately silent as I, this speck of dust upon a single particle of sand, noiselessly thrum so utterly blindly among the black.

Others called me Guardian, in past times. Though I spared their choral chants no thought and their sermons no notice, I was yet praised. In action if not in character. In the blood of the Light's, of the Traveler's enemies I was lifted above the station of my meager age.

So long as I acted, I was loved and trusted.

But with words, with an opinion, I so quickly—effortlessly—broke their faith in me.

Unlike others—true Guardians, I suppose— may have presumed I could not even conjure the wont to be hurt, to interpret betrayal. For indeed, I had never put stock nor store in their words. I had nothing to lose from that which I had yet to gain anything. 'Twas simple, honest, _logic_.

Such shouting there was, cacophonies of meaningless static to my ears, young and careless. Condemnation without bite. Disappointment that was lighter than air. Beyond all of the anger, the misplaced betrayal, the judging eyes of those already so blinded, the message was—thankfully—so very clear:

Leave. Leave and never return.

I could, did, can, and shall continue to oblige such frosty decree. They wished to sever my 'ilk' without conflict. In desire—if not semantics—we were identical.

In my words of the time, "Once was I called a master of the Void and its applications. But I see—in my irreverence and 'recidivous arrogance'—I see so much more to learn! Only out and away from this suffocating Light may I accomplish that." In my unwise emotion I perhaps galvanized their stolid misgivings. I could not be sorry, even still. While I am not Guardian I am Warlock—I am my mind, and all that it condemns me to.

It is now, in that condemnation, that I, in Void and steel and energy, drift so speedily to destination undiscovered but not unknown. To a planet forgotten in the tremulous Collapse. The only extrasolar colony of Mankind yet known of. Journeyed to in Golden Age sleeper-ships. Thousands of people walking in formation to a slow death to a long distant star with only the vague and ghostly satisfaction of future generations' prosperity.

There's a bitter joke in there to be made about the Light's adherents, I know it.

A mote of light, a star, grows in size so close and yet so far ahead. In relativity my voyage shall soon close and I will be inundated by simple and honest truth. I will see either prosperous isolationists or yet more ruins of blind peoples.

How long has it been—my own journey? This soundless pilgrimage for lost knowledge? However enfeebled I am by the scant wrought embers of Light left I am still Other, outside of mortality. I do not require food, nor drink, nor sleep. I am Warlock. I need only the meditations on the Void and its infinity. Theories are abound in my unbreakable mind. The Void holds no secrets—for that implied a conscious will to _keep_ such things—its complexity merely need be puzzled out as all natures of the universe.

My bosom swells with an emotion so familiar to me—excitement. My vibrant imagination is simply atwitter with hypotheticals, with postulations, with fantasies, with that simple thrill of _not knowing_. This was the true treasure of learning, to taste the unknown so closely, to see it so stubbornly in your path just _waiting_ to be discovered—to be analyzed. I know this much: whatever I find, theorems confirmed, technology uncovered, stories catalogued—all of them shall be given to whatever benefactors will accept it in Sol. Knowledge, even that discovered by one so 'disgraced', should be shared, propagated.

The light from the alien star fractures against the shielded cockpit, particulates of the light spectrum dazzle and jump in the contained atmosphere. It is not long now.

"Euterpe." I speak to the hollow darkness of this steel chamber, that long silence is obstinate, " _Euterpe_." I call again, daring to turn away from my quarry to gaze into the familiar dark.

A gentle azure—weak as candlelight—blooms. It is a sight, that meagerness, that hurts me. I am not condemned alone by my mind.

"Oh, sweet Euterpe..." I wanted to say so much more, "...Can you hear me? Dear Euterpe?" I _should_ be saying so much more. But...

That gentle, faithful Ghost nods her single, luminous eye. I catch my breath before it can stutter into something more painful, "Good." I rise from the chair and approach that flickering, too small light, "We're finally here, Euterpe." I say, smiling gently perhaps in some effort to comfort what looks so fragile now, so damning.

" _We're here!_ At the cusp of unprecedented discovery!" I must call upon my excitement to hide that interminable regret. Euterpe, the beautiful thing, nods again—I can feel her excitement. Even unforgivably smothered as it is.

Dare I to give in? For a moment? To let myself break for her? Tell her everything she already knows?

No.

But I may dare one thing. Slowly, gently, I pick her up, this Ghost forgotten. Through these fine-weaved fabrics I dare to hug her close. For this instant I know we both feel a warmth not of the Light. It is the only warmth we've been allowed to have in this solitude.

I loose my hold to look down upon her as she looks up unto me, "I'm going to bring us close, alright? We'll get a full view of the planet and scout out some hotspots to search, okay?" I cannot treat her as anything but precious, not now. Euterpe, she nods once more before dimming.

The compartment is black again, in the low light I can barely see her in my own arms. The thoughts of that frighten me. Gently, kindly, I put her back in that metal cradle just for her.

A bitter smile rises from me. Weak as we have both become our minds will not surrender. In that and so much more she and I are one in the same.

I shake away those cynical thoughts, calm these heavy breaths, and reenter the pilot's seat. We are so close to new knowledge. 'Twould be a shame if I looked away long enough for the ship to smash the planet at faster-than-light speeds. The dark humor lifts my mind somewhat. But not so much that I do not sigh heavily as my fingers dance across buttons, knobs, levers, and wheel.

The last stretch, this last maniacal sprint to the finish passes so very quickly in the silence. Hours may as well have been minutes in my skewed perception. Expediently I and her are in geostationary orbit with the planet, the currently nocturnal side of it, above center ocean of four sizable continents. And I grinned at the sight. Grinned at those beautiful glimmers of light below.

City lights.

How apt, how fitting of the universe's complexity that it seems neither of my predictions be true. What civilization could be down there for such lights to be so cloistered and so few?

Well, I rise from the seat and turn back to the darkness, if they have such strong and close lights they have radios. Not only is Euterpe perfect to catch and interpret any communications, she _should_ be with me for this. We should share in this moment.

She is so small in my hands, so light as I cradle her up to the window.

"Euterpe," I whisper, "Euterpe— _look_..." an azure glow tickles at the bottom edge of my vision, and so I know that she looks as I do upon the planet. With excitement.

I wished I was content to stay there. Content for us to bask in that stillness. To just _be_. But I can't. For I am me. I am Warlock and my mind demands more.

"Euterpe." I call softly, apologetically. It hurts more than I want it to as she weakly tears her gaze away from the planet to look upon me, "Can you detect any communications? Video? Radio?" it went unsaid what to do from that point with it. Though she did not nod I know that she was working as she could. In but a few seconds the window became eclipsed with information.

It was amazing. News, military, radio stations, television stations, _internet._ Humans! As though they were fresh from the Golden Age itself!

I didn't track how long her and I stood there. Days—mayhap weeks come and gone. Reading, watching, being of one simple and pure will in learning. This excerpt of reality was timeless to us two kindred.

Inevitably our minds were as one in singular directive.

We need to make contact.

Grimm, disunity, a society still reeling from the effects of a war three score and ten years gone. All of this without even a shred of Golden Age technology. Without foreknowledge it may not be long before they unknowingly call the attention of the vitriolic and the genocidal that travel the Void.

Without speaking Euterpe and I knew which of these Kingdoms below we'd approach most gently—Atlas. It lacked most of the brutality of the regions in Vacuo, the thriving criminal element of Mistral, the racial politicking that was inevitable Menagerie. While Vale indeed shared these traits with Atlas the northern kingdom had notably more advanced technology than all of the others. None of it was Golden Age, unfortunately. But a higher technological basis would provide a smoother gradient of transition into Post-Collapse technology.

Euterpe dimmed as I set her down in her cradle.

I spare but a moment to caress her. I know she cannot feel me now, this is not to reassure _her._

I again sit in the pilot's seat. Perhaps the last time I'd be doing so for a long while.

The ship, this nimble Ceres Galliot, jostled and thrummed with a lurch of thrust. This gallant chariot of mine is a whisper of the wind in the atmosphere. For though I am quick, I am not rushed. I speed highest there is above oceans and ice and steel.

I am silent as the single beat of a bird's wing. A hidden pinprick of lavender in an azure sky veiled by cantankerous snow and cloud.

It is just embedded into that white expanse below, that newest world of man. I know how I shall approach them. I cannot be seen as threat. But I will not be ignorable.

I am impossible to see, from the ground. But sight is not what is to be tested. I wish to gauge their intellect—their curiosity.

My hands leave the controls to rest with me. I am swift vacating this shell of flesh and dying Light. It is much like death, this conscious ascension. Eyes lose their sight, the buzzing of the noisy normalcy dulls and fast ceases.

There is only Void, even mixed with the atmosphere of this spherical titan of mineral.

It does not bite nor prowl like the Darkness. Nor does it suffocate and demand adulation as the Light does. It is a profound nothing. Stubbornly _being_ amidst the sound and light and heat that so futilely continue within it.

It _is_.

In this moment—this meditation—I am with it. An infinitesimal ember writhing in want inside the shadowed titan's maw— _pleading_ to be eaten.

And so I am. The feeling is so familiar. It is what I oft imagined coming home after a long and arduous journey must feel like. Comfortable. _Safe._

But I am here with purpose—regretfully. Being free of those obtrusive needs of a living body I feel the ease Void answers me. It is with the ease of moving my own arm that I conjure a sphere—the singular _perfect_ shape—of purest Void. An absence of being in complete and stubborn totality. Twenty foot in diameter, ending just short of scraping the ceiling of the Galliot.

In my complete comfort with all craft of Void maintaining this supreme nothing is as thoughtless as breathing.

It is me—in this rapturous moment—and it settles as I settle.

Void closes in around my fragile spark. It does not bubble or subsume like Darkness. It does not uplift or taunt like Light. It is nothing. It is absence.

 _It is so completely beautiful._

Time—meaningless as it ever was and is—passes. A merest tendril of my consciousness counts the revolutions of the sun, for other methods held so little significance. One. Two. Four and six and ten and fourteen.

And my nirvana is disturbed, as I needed it to be.

An aircraft. Approaching so very slowly in the scope of Void. Relative to my flesh shell I'm certain it would look much faster.

Mournfully I separate from that home—in the nothing. All at once existence blares, flashes, and bites at my consciousness. The feeling of bleeding out in a rotting, _screaming_ , corpse.

It takes great effort to not cast hate upon this intruder, even as they are merely answering my song of purest nothing.

My eyes—perturbed and stern—appraise the native vessel. I raise my brow, lightly intrigued. It is close to a bizarre facsimile to my own—a Reef vessel. I am certain there would a vague sort of flattery felt by the Queen's Shipwrights.

It is near, a scant hundred yards from starboard. They are cautious—now that the sphere of Void has dissipated—that is good. Caution before the unknown is, in and of itself, a universal mark of intellect.

Another noise—grating and unwelcome—blares. It is a voice. With a quiet consternation I summon the focus to translate the hollow noise into language.

"-uesting identification. Repeat. This is the Atlas carrier Hephaestus. Unknown vessel, we are requesting identification." the voice is male, young adult, it attempts to not convey strong emotion. But the man is ignorant of Void and its omnipresence. I look to the patterns his sound impresses upon the absence. He is uncertain. He looks and he cannot understand. There is fear in him. Fear and curiosity and just that smallest bead of purest wonder.

Though it be a chore to again move in this sac of flesh I press a finger upon the console and answer his call, "This is the spacefaring vessel: Ceres Galliot." I provide in gentle lilt, "I am Awoken. Of the Sol star system. I have come in peace and cooperation." my voice is calm, with that faint frankness I copy from Petra. Her take on bluntness was more personable than my own, I've found.

There is pause. In this welcome verisimilitude to silence I deign to lay back.

Readjusting to the tumult of existence oft proved so very trying to the psyche that just wished to escape that exact thing. Whilst I am bitter I am also—above most else—stubborn in my intellectual duty. As sad as the happenstance is, these people would learn better from a teacher than a library.

"Come in—Ceres Galliot—come in." the radio squawks its noise, but I listen, "Request that you dock with the Hephaestus in the primary hangar bay." the tone is not quite an order. The forwardness is welcome. It is primarily military I will be conversing with in the nearest future. Such verve is helpful for now.

I bite back a sigh at the thought of all the trivial _talking_ ahead, "Confirmed, Hephaestus." I reply, again in that straight and ever so lightly sonorous lilt, "Will reach dock in-" I _believe_ they retain Earth-standard time-keeping, "Two minutes." swiftly I cut the line. The noise of radio static grows so intolerable so very quickly.

In all honesty my estimate of 'Two minutes' was a complete guess. With my perception so far divorced from measured time I could have spent two hours getting there for all I cared to track it.

All the same I steadily reach the hangar. The sight ahead—on the floor of the hangar—is a bevy of landing lights accompanied by a uniformed man waving bright orange sticks in vague, directional patterns. I permit myself a shrug. 'Tis not difficult to determine his—and the lights'—directives.

Slowly. Forward. Down. Left. Forward. Down. And land.

My bed of steel jostles and creaks as it settles on solid ground for the first in an undoubtedly long time.

I see a moderate crown ahead, mostly obscured by the Galliot's controls. I pay them little mind—even they are of little import before another.

Almost too quickly I rise from the seat to most cautiously—hopefully—stride into the dark of the chamber. The low light cannot hinder my eyes and, more importantly, my memory. I kneel before the altar to my actions, "Euterpe." I call ever so gently. For I cannot help but fear that anything louder would be as so much lashing against her mind.

Her dim light flickers on, her eye is inquisitive—excited. I need not say anything before she rises of her own accord. I feel like crying as I watch her unsteady meander through still air. But I am silent. I cannot— _will not_ —impress such depression upon Euterpe.

She finds a balance in the invisible current rather quickly. Soon she is a smooth and steady glide along the air. But my eyes catch hers and I see the strain in it—the almost imperceptible flicker of its glow. I look away, choosing to ignore it.

We both do.

We do not speak as Euterpe manipulates our matter and energy with an old—tired—expert hand.

In a timeless instant I am no longer facing the unlit purple and lavender hues of the Galliot and am instead beholding a startlingly sterile white décor. I can only judge the color scheme to be a just barely tolerable obnoxious.

I arrive without weapon and bereft of helmet—hair of colorless black, chin-length and straight, framing my face—bedecked in constrains of Dead Orbit armors and schema; a gesture of trust. However I am not so naive as to come unshielded.

There is an aged woman approaching. Her hair is a trimmed and graying brown. Skin pale and wrinkled in an immaculately—obnoxiously—white uniform.

She is but a pace away when she stops so very crisply, her cold eyes searching mine. However my own were wont to explore the interior surrounding us. Gunships line the walls. A bizarre practice—carriers are. I've yet to puzzle out their advantage above overwhelming firepower.

"Welcome aboard A.A.C. Hephaestus." Ah, yes, the noise of talking, "Miss...?" the woman's tone is a rather demanding mutation of inquiry. I believe she was asking—without actually 'asking'—for a name.

Names, a concept I had never subscribed to. I have always been—still _am—_ Warlock and Voidwalker. It still is invariably sufficient and most perfectly apt.

 _Voidwalker._ If names' foremost intention is as descriptor I could not then ask for a better term.

"Voidwalker." I answer concisely, firmly so in the face of her expected scrutiny, "I am the Warlock Voidwalker." she does not look wholly at comfort with the name I gave her. However I doubt she expected to fully understand the answer in the first place.

"...Voidwalker." her voice may be terse but the ebbs it impresses upon void tell of vague, bizarre discomfort. It is peculiar, I am unaware as to what may have caused such—admittedly hidden—reaction.

"I am Captain Susan Sallowbrook." I immediately choose to refer to her as Captain, the actual name is so diluted in meaning as to be a shallow label. "The A.A.C. Hephaestus was sent to investigate the anomaly being generated in the upper stratosphere." The Captain eyes me further with those sharp, beige eyes of her. Wrinkles bunch as her face stretches into a less neutral frown, "I presume that you are responsible for the anomaly. Correct?" her question is barely out as I nod a single time.

I am eager to move past this cloud of noise.

"Then I demand to know what this purpose was." she was becoming impatient, I need not peer into Void to know that.

"A signal." I answer simply—for the answer _is_ that simple. But perhaps, even then, it is necessary I elaborate, "It was intended as both test and meeting point. For contact."

"Test?" she tersely repeats. It is a reasonable question, regardless of if I find her disposition peculiar.

"Of course." I affirm plainly, "I had possessed—I believe—reasonable estimates as to your average level of intellect. However I required a firmer—more direct—observation of your innate curiosity—of how long I would remain up here in trance." I see—or more accurately feel—her rising question and opt to answer before she speaks, "Fourteen days. I have been generating Void-space for fourteen days."

The Captain pauses, looking more annoyed and vaguely bemused than anything, "Void-space?" she inquires. I grimace, it seems that with every answer I only prompt more questions. This interaction will achieve nothing should I humor her every ignorance now.

I hold up a hand, a gesture that I believe possessed connotations of 'cease' or 'wait', "I desire—and will—explain everything at more officiated discussion." I state, with what I admit was a small measure of my own impatience bleeding in, "I have made contact in hopes of obtaining official agreements in future. In short, I wish to be taken to your leader or leaders."

The Captain hums to herself, in thought I would guess, another bizarre habit I do not share with others.

"Acceptable." she finally acquiesces, her eyes shift to the left, towards the open bay, "With the anomaly dissipated you are likely the only one able to explain just what the _void-space_ was." she seems to reason it out spontaneously. I nod in response—her logic was sound.

"However..." she begins. I again grimace, more needless obstruction. "For the duration of the voyage to the Academy—two hours—you, Miss Voidwalker, will be accompanying myself and the command crew on the bridge." her words are unmistakably orders.

"That is an... acceptable stipulation." I acquiesce begrudgingly. While the lost meditation is most certainly irritating it _might_ be beneficial to more directly observe this military microcosm of their culture.

"Excellent." the Captain seems pleased with her small victory—whatever that be. She turns on her heel and marches, so confident that I will follow most promptly.

I see little choice but to prove her correct in this matter. I am quick to stride aside her in perfect rhythmic step. These petty power-plays are distantly interesting but overtly bothersome as they directly involve me.

I cannot count time—not in any consistent pace to give it meaning—and so I count the steps we take. From Galliot to doorway, from that hallway to elevator, and from that elevator to the Captain's chair.

One-hundred and fourteen. Fifty-seven. Thirty-three. Respectively.

The bridge is of a rather cramped layout. The Captain on her chair has direct sight over all of her officers and their respective stations. Each station is arranged side-to-side in a total of two descending rows—much like the steps in bleachers or the seats in an auditorium. Everything is marked by what is fast becoming a characteristic sterility and form in slight priority over function.

"Helmsman. Make for the Academy." the Captain's orders are firm and loud. She is practiced in this role. "Communications. Radio ahead to Ironwood; inform him that we have encountered an unknown calling herself Voidwalker and that she has requested to meet with him in person." she is obeyed without even noise of assent from her subordinates. They are quite familiar it seems.

It appears that the chair may spin, as the Captain reveals by smoothly turning to face me.

"Now," she starts, tone terse. I am already aware of how little I will appreciate this discussion, "You _are_ going to tell me everything you plan to tell Ironwood. I am-"

"Impossible." I interject, heedless of her petty caution, "The information I plan to share will take weeks to properly communicate in its entirety. 'Twould be-"

"Then summarize!" she bites out, it seems she took some great offense at being interrupted, "Whatever game you're playing is over. Anything you're planning on telling General Ironwood goes through me first." Her voice is quite raised—not quite shouting, but most certainly not talking either.

The discussion has gotten away from me. Become unacceptably turned against me. I feel the impressions of curiosity from the officers, but I keep my sight on the petty Captain so seated before me, "Now, _start talking._ " her increasingly infuriating voice is thick with such blisteringly childish impetuousness.

It is clear that they do not understand. I am here to _help_ both them and others so much more important. Euterpe is yet still silent and hidden betwixt light; it is my decision how best to help these people.

My mind is resolute. I must make them understand the sheer breadth of what I offer. The very much deadly galaxy they occupy.

These people—those of Atlas—seem to only understand what they respect, and it is those with power over people they respect.

With the barest flicker of will I shroud the whole of the bridge in silence. There is no visual indication of this—I am no novice with Void—merely the most potent absence of sound. The effect on the inhabitants is not quite immediate. But they—the child-Captain most of all—understand that all is not well as of this moment.

She is not even out of her seat before I will her to sit—her limbs to be nearly crushed against this paltry throne to her ego. Her officers barely able to noiselessly yell as I press them too into their seats.

She is afraid. She may hide it exceedingly well in her hate but Void is all-telling. The flickering of Light and Dark in her fragile shell is most frail. An ember above a howling nocturnal sea.

This is good. In fear—in _terror—_ perhaps she will listen.

"You do not understand." I state, for this child-Captain need be aware of that above all else, "But how could you?" I remark, mostly to myself, "You are primitive." another fact she needs to be aware of, "You— _all_ of you—have forgotten what you were. Such that you now, most disappointingly, are _not_." the sedate volume of my simple voice is most potent, a stubborn star amid an empty night sky.

Willing her eyes to look into my own is a further portent, "Remnant. Atlas—specifically—will accept what I give them. For it is _not_ an offer. It is the way things are to be." with that I beckon Void back into my bosom. The noise returns, with it are they, the panicked breaths of the crew as their movement is again their own. Also with it comes the shaken breathing of the child-Captain herself.

Her anger, her growing hate, grows and glows brighter from the echoes of complete powerlessness she has experienced. Strings of consciousness tremble in Void with her desires to fight back. But my eyes scrutinize her unexpected self-control in this matter. Not as much a child as my ire had labeled her then.

None dare to speak after my impression of power upon their frail flesh. A boon as Euterpe presses her own umbrage against me. She feels I'd escalated things, was too cold in my actions. Perhaps I myself am childish in ignoring her opinion. It is too late now, regardless.

My eyes close and brow furrows as I force away the scant guilt—the ever so useless regret. It is of no benefit to me nor to Euterpe.

The voyage is a quiet affair now. The child-Captain's only comfort from it is her own voice as she engages her officers in hushed conversation.

I permit this. More aptly, Euterpe requests me to permit this. It eases my mind to obey her desire.

Time passes easily as a stream in the quiet. I count two-thousand one-hundred and forty-eight breaths from the child-Captain. Useless information—beyond nothing extraneously wrong with her respiratory system—but it occupied my mind whilst I could not meditate in present company.

An officer speaks on the radio, they are requesting to dock with—what I presume—is the suspended dock I see closing the distance ahead, some several hundred feet above the ground.

The officer has shot me thirty-eight individual half-second glances over the course of the trip. He chances another four as this lumbering cruiser ambles towards and subsequently into an open dock on the station.

I turn to the child-Captain, she was already tiredly leering at me from her chair. It looks as though her temper has fizzled out under its own heat.

"We'll be heading to the docking ramp now, Voidwalker." she speaks carefully as though _I_ were the childish one between the us twain. I do not spare her even a glower for her delusion. "From the dock I shall escort you to the transitory hub; transportation to the Atlas Academy will be waiting there for us." her pause to breathe is thick with a not completely physical exhaustion, "An Academy escort will be waiting for us on the ground and will take you to General Ironwood's office." the child-Captain turns her gaze away from me before I even answer.

Regardless, I nod my assent to the plan. It is pleasingly lacking in the superfluous drama that made this encounter so tremulous in the first place.

Somehow the child-Captain looks just a bit older as she stands. A bizarre accompaniment to her new complacency, but I see no reason to object it as the quiet is still quite welcome.

She starts marching off—up-turned chin and all—without a word, none are needed as I silently match her pace beside her. Next to her, it is trivial to see the echoes around her in Void. However they are so muddled in conflict and contrary directions I can't much parse from it any actual information.

The hallways we enter on the way to the dock are unmolested by the distasteful necessities that occurred on the bridge. At least, the vague static of talking I tone out are of about the same volume and frequency as they had been the first time through.

We pass by and through twenty-nine doorways when we reach the docking ramp. It is specifically for crew—far too thin and brittle a metal for more than approximately three-quarters of a ton at most. The natural light suffusing the without of the cruiser is much brighter and colorful than the obnoxious sterility of the within of the ship.

The child-Captain assumes the lead down the ramp, bizarrely—stubbornly—so. Mayhap some vague and abstract importance or cultural imposition that I failed to note previously. I shrug the thought away, the quirks of this sufficiently chided woman are wholly unimportant—especially so considering the imminent meeting.

The blast of fresh air—the billowing speed of wind currents frazzling my loose hair—it is so novel to me. The last moment I'd been planet-side without a helmet was on the Tower, on Earth.

It disturbs me—somewhat—that so many purport to the beauty of this, of the Earth-like terrestrial ecosystems.

Measured steps pull me along behind the child-Captain. The blowing winds have already cast astray their novelty. I grimace and summon an inkling Void to swallow the air and its currents around my head—it's not as though I require oxygen as I am.

As though hands clasp around my ears the tiresome noise of the world ceases, the steps shared between the child-Captain and I are silent as a prowler on the hunt. My black hair stills and again frames my face as it should.

The sanctity of thought is a sliver of bottled nirvana.

I do not count anything as she leads and I follow—and walk, and walk, and walk. I am timeless in this pocket of nothings. All things I see through look so much more beautiful so close to its rapture.

The sun in the clouds is no longer a glare.

The bevy of aimless noise without ceases—the most beautiful state of such is _none_ after all.

The pathological use of white in Atlas architecture is a glistening simplicity rather than an obnoxious pretension.

And the Captain is an aging twilight, with her prime—in so beautiful a tragedy—cresting over yonder horizon as age, wisdom and experience eclipse the glittering stars above.

The universe is cruel indeed to deprive us of this clarity with its audacity to exist where there should be nothing.

My eyes focus ahead. The Captain lips are flapping most bizarr-ah, talking again. Reluctantly I relinquish my blanket of never-was and listen. Most annoyingly the instant I do is the instant that the wind again bellows its idiocy and charges me again.

"-so perhaps we can start again. Much as I'd prefer not to." the Captain offers a hand. For a moment I am flummoxed. However the small tad I _did_ hear most definitely alluded to some 'clean-slate' offer.

Whilst the effort of holding any sort of grudge or guilt in the first place is abject nonsense to me, thus making the notion of forgiveness itself quite useless most often, it is as of now a miraculous convenience.

I throw on a meager smile and take her hand—though she is the one that had to initiate the actual shaking bit of it. The Captain does not return my insincere smile, instead nodding with stern neutrality but a single time before turning and boarding the craft that had apparently been just before us.

It is a troop transport of some sort—relatively lightly armed and moderately armored with some token armaments of small-ish gatling cannons.

I hop in after her, assuming a seat across and to her right—I am uncertain as to how much value she places on arbitrary notions of personal space.

I am thankful that the door slid shut behind us, cutting off the mindless wind from its screaming.

As the transport shakes and buckles at dropping from harness and into sky a thought occurs to me.

"Captain." I begin, the noise seems to start the person in question ever so slightly, but she looks to me all the same, "Your carrier—the Hephaestus—for how long will it remain docked?"

She ponders my question for only a small moment, "Ah, you don't want your ship to be stuck on the carrier, yes?" her question carries that distinct lilt of cleverness.

I smile—genuinely now—my did she take the logical leap I had not come to expect from her.

I nod to her, she returns a nod of her own as she leans back into her seat, "Well—being its Captain—the Hephaestus cannot leave port without me. I myself will not be leaving the Academy until after this—" she vaguely gestures her hand in a circle betwixt the two of us, "whatever _this_ is—has reached a peaceable point."

"Hmm, understood." I affirm, my eyes looking away to much of nothing. The Captain seems to follow suit in my peripheral. It is more comfortable to ignore me as she can, I suppose.

It doesn't quite matter. I hold out my upturned palm, "Euterpe." I beckon gently. The Captain looks on in both furrowed curiosity and hidden shock as fragile Euterpe coalesces into visibility above my hand.

Her eye is intent upon mine, but it is not as judging as it was before. I am thankful for that.

"Euterpe," my speech is so soft I'd almost mistaken it for pleading, perhaps it is, "make- ah, make sure the Galliot is ready to make landfall by the evening, alright?" I am thankful that she nods without pressing the matter. Sweet Euterpe, she'd already known to do that, known that _I_ would have done the same preparations—have the same plan in mind. My fingers just barely furl from some unnamed and unbidden faint emotion.

I close my hand. I let her disappear. It is easier than further thought on why I called for her so frivolously.

"Another one of your mysteries?" the Captain remarks tersely, I am thankful for the distraction it provides, "Should I expect to _ever_ get an explanation for this one?"

Sarcasm, it seems she is yet still a child in some irritable measure at least. A bitter smile sinks adrift on my face, "A Ghost. A ghost and an old, _old,_ confidante." my chest lifts with a single sour laugh.

I hear the Captain sigh with heavy resignation, see her again turn away in my peripheral. It is alright, she has unknowingly done enough service in distracting me. It is not her that I need to trust me.

I start counting again as the condemnation I hear in the edges of this silence starts growing louder.

There are two-hundred and forty-six individual rivets holding the plating I am able to see from my seat to the skeletal structure of the transport. The panels pass from a sterile white to a colder white—I would assume that had been the moment we'd passed through the lowest clouds. The sun is now cloistered away at some indeterminate point in an unseen sky.

I've run out of rivets to count. I feel an anxiety creeping in, a cloying desperation to avoid thoughts of Euterpe starting to eat at my fallible senses. The temptation rises and I cannot help but to give in.

My eyes shut, I fold my hands into my lap and rest my legs straight and together. With a meager exertion of will I fade. My senses cease; first I lose my eyes—darkness disappears into a true nothing—second my eardrums melt away and with them the ghastly vibrance of noise. Then go my nerves, it is a total and pleasing absence of all sensation.

The final sense of being—my body—falls into the nothing, falls apart to suffuse into the beautiful are-nots and the sweet nonexistence.

It is so rapturous a beauty, this pocket of nothing. I cannot regret, for I am formless in this capsule of non-perception. Sound cannot taint me and sight is incapable of deceiving. The Light may scream and attempt to obstruct but I will be e'er heedless to its vanity. The Darkness will congeal and stalk but I am outside of it—so very unreachable.

I am the without of all things.

A presence pushes at me. _Pushes_ at me in this! My senseless Void!

I feel a profound anger at this _thing._ This unforgivable violation of this sacrosanct refuge. A virulent hate is awash around my consciousness.

My being slams into my previously vacant body. My senses return in a head-spinning flood of dead information, sight blinds, sound deafens, nerves are screaming.

But behind all of that—behind all of the howling and the burning and the anger erupting through my mind—Euterpe is plucking at my thoughts. The flame in me dies, snuffed by stolid reality.

I am left with the cold, the cold of so many horrible things bubbling inside. My head is aching from the strewn explosion of senses and my heart has left me—where I cannot guess.

Euterpe emanates a deep concern towards me. I am doubtless that she beheld the whole of my cantankerous return to fleshy and flawed consciousness.

I will the ephemeral pain to be clasped in stone chains, and sling it from my peaks of thought and deep into the chasm that is the subconscious below. The image helps tremendously and the pain fades—replaced instead by a not-warm and not-cold absence of feeling.

Apathy is my refuge—my home and my sanctuary—in lieu of the more total alternative.

Euterpe says nothing, just as she has never passed such judgment and I dearly hope _will_ never pass such condemnation unto me.

My nerves tell me that I am still seated and I do not feel the raucous wind. The smells are yet also the same, the faint wafts of motor oils and the distinct stuffiness of multiple living bodies in an enclosed space. The steady groans of the engines are still a dull ambiance in the compartment.

I dare to look, to see with these limited luminescent spheres of meat. The Captain is restless, ready to stand—to leave.

I am about to question her when the vehicle grumbles and the engines cut, but we do not fall. Indeed, we are still—sedentary. Ah, we were landing.

Though a split second off the Captain snaps to her feet most eagerly as solid ground is invisibly reached. I, conversely, take a few moments to compose my expression and more fully compartmentalize the niggling cracks of undue emotion in my conscious mind.

The transport door to my right—her left—clinks open from an outside hand. It slides outwards and then to the side, stopping with a reverberating firmness to it. I venture that the man that had opened it is the pilot, disciplined, helmeted, and standing at attention just so out of the way.

The Captain is, not surprisingly, the first out between the two of us. Thinking on it, perhaps this just barely cordial distance would be the best course. I applaud her initiative in the matter.

I shrug away the thoughts, however grateful I am for their new inanity, and stand.

I discover the snow to be about a relatively even ankle deep as I drop into it with a single dry scrunch..

The world without of the vehicle is quiet. A pleasing happenstance, I can most confidently say. The falling snow is consistently delicate and straight. There is little of the cantankerous winds to beat at my thoughts. There is most certainly cold, an abundance of it, but to my Light-wrought physiology it is an intellectual peculiarity rather than something so banal as a physical pain.

The Captain is heedless of my loops of thought, it seems. As I spy her a growing distance ahead, a solid steel door some thirty yards distant. My eyes follow along the contours of the building ahead as my body moves to reach and follow the Captain. The door is part of a distinctly white building—whatever possible reason they collectively posses such a fetish for the non-color I cannot fathom—the building is quite large. Larger still as my eyes trace the contours to see them descend and surround the ground we were on.

Ah, this was a landing pad on some roof of what I'd presume to be an administrations construct. Knowing that I believe I could spy where the landing lights were by the now quite conspicuous equidistant small hills lining the ends and forming a gradual parabolic shape.

A hiss of pressure, the shrieks of sliding steel. I swing my head towards the sound—the same direction I'd been walking—it is the Captain. I don't spot any gesticulations from her arms nor do I see any sort of external sensors to readily authorize her.

I let the mystery be, there is far greater priority on the cusp.

Inside the doorway it looks both brighter and darker than the gray day outside. In color and luminance respectively.

I believe this would mark the moment that I've now seen a color other than white in the Atlesian architecture. A cyan light fixture is implanted in the ceiling inside. It was a scant detail but it was a convenient little confirmation of _some_ aesthetic tastes. I much prefer Dead Orbit's use of minimalism myself. White should be accent, never primary.

There are a pair of soldiers to greet us, accompanied by primitive automatons. Primitive bipedal automatons that bear rudimentary rifles. They—the constructs and their guns—have a meager exoticism. Artifacts of an unknown society. Useless, but intellectually engaging.

The Captain marches onwards with hardly a glance. They salute her as she passes. However as I move to follow I am pointedly blocked by the guards. I do not detect any overt threat in the gesture. Not yet at the very least.

"I'm sorry, Miss." one of them apologizes, calling my attention upon them, "But Captain Sallowbrook," ah, the hollow name again, "needs to report for debriefing. Mr. Schnee is currently waiting for you in the Academy's main office."

The other guard audibly snaps to attention, "Follow me." he orders not _quite_ tersely. It notably lacks the airs of politicking. The man crisply pivots and marches inward. I promptly acquiesce, I am decidedly appreciative of this distinct lack of power-playing dramatics the Captain attempted.

As I follow the stoic guard's firm march through the halls I will my eyes to unfocus. The halls become blurs of few colors.

I count the people we pass.

A pair of them is nearing, they sound young. Their voices are tinged in formless—unspoken, unsaid—familiarity. Unknowingly their feelings impress upon Void. I can feel their closeness, absent of the meaningless physicality. But then they cease speaking, likely as soon as they behold me. That trust is gone, replaced by a beautiful curiosity that is tempered 'neath the lashes of caution.

Their closeness does not return after I pass them, they do not talk again. They move away, away from my cloying nothing, harboring that curiosity as it grows and fattens.

But soon they fade, as pleasingly nonexistent as all else is outside my senses.

It is only those two people that I pass in these scant few halls—a more sweet than bitter bittersweet—before the guard has apparently led me to an elevator.

The guard starts speaking, it is random and indefinable static until I concert some effort to understand.

"... and General Ironwood shouldn't be long after you join Mr. Schnee on the fifth level." the guard is quite straight in his mannerism. It is a small comfort that I find myself appreciating whilst I am still forced to engage in this vapid method of communication.

The guard, refreshing stoic that he is in this vacuity, steps aside and assumes attention beside the opening elevator doors. I profer unto him a single nod—he has earned an acknowledgment at least—he is thankfully unresponsive to it as I step into the small two-and-a-half to three foot space in the elevator.

Once I am inside the doors are quick to close, some basic motion sensors I presume. I pivot in the small space to spot the buttons. The one beside the very boldly engraved and inked five depresses with a click.

My bosom tingles just a bit with the gentle sensation of rising up.

Were I an individual more in line with the common-folk I'd consider this tight cylindrical space to be unpleasantly confining. As it stands I am quite pleased that the lack of great space makes for exquisite excuse to be totally alone for even a short length of time.

It is a welcome facsimile to a more rapturous deprivation of all senses.

There is a single chime from some simplistic speaker above. It is another needless thing to ignore as the doors open.

There is a man ahead, he is seated and only gleaming the contents of a thick book in his hands. Judging as best as I can from what I believe is a profound disinterest in his face at least. He is notably older than the Captain, the hair is a graying smoke black, kempt and trimmed. His pale and wrinkled skin tells all of his age. But, of course, he is adorned in a suit of the same blisteringly obnoxious white on white on some barest smattering of accent color schema.

As I step out of the elevator chamber the man's upturned eyes flick to me. For a small moment we make the smallest bit of eye contact. I feel the echoes of his intrigue in Void's gelatinous vibrations. There is an intellect behind those ocular orbs, one that I can scantly admire from a distance. He claps the book shut and rests it upon the single desk in the room. He stands—a long practiced posture—reminiscent of the aristocratic types of New Monarchy that I only faintly recall.

"Ah, I was just wondering when you'd arrive." he speaks not unkindly, though the emanations he impresses upon my sense are some bizarre conglomeratic betwixt genuine and falsity. He approaches to offer his hand—both decorated with plain silver rings. I reciprocate, if reticently towards the physical contact.

"Jacques Schnee, owner and CEO of the Schnee Dust Company." he has a professional lilt, this one. "Jacques" possesses at least a cursory training in some oration—or mayhap experience, rather.

A small moment passes before I reluctantly recall the niggling social prompting at work.

"Voidwalker." I surrender, matching his shake, "A Warlock of the Sol star system." my tone is naturally apathetic. I long for the more visceral—more succinct—communions between Euterpe and I.

Schnee's face screws into a smile. A placating effort, I pin it as.

The man turns and moves crisply to sit in at the desk, he gestures to the pointlessly lavish chair in front of it.

"Have a seat. Please." it seems most common in this Atlesian culture for orders to come before requests.

I make cold contact with his eyes, "I will stand. There is far too much to discuss—far too much of too great import—to sit." my words are firm, for the matter will be long and is of far greater importance than any issue these peoples presently have experience with.

It will be a long, fruitful process of thorough education.

He shrugs with his outstretched hand.

"If you prefer, Miss Voidwalker." he acquiesces primly. I restrain a grimace, the need people have for the use of names is plainly obscene. "Now," he begins—his shift to a serious air is as sudden as it is welcome, "I'm of the understanding that you've come here with the intentions of inundating us with knowledge." the man's tone is appropriately skeptical, "However, before we get started on that extended lecture. I would like for you to answer a number of more specific questions I have." his words are expertly coated in a measure of humor. But the bite resolve behind those words is most potently pronounced.

I accept the stipulation with a nod, "Of course." I state genially, to indulge the intellectual skepticism I wholly approve of, "Hopefully it will provide a superior foundational basis of knowledge to better understand the subsequent information I will give."

He nods, though there is a crack of a smile. Mayhap my speech was that irregular to them. It is irrelevant.

"Wonderful!" he chimes, I faintly spy the bones of a carrot-and-stick approach emerging in this exchange, "Now..."


End file.
